Buzios

Hello all, writing to you from Rio again - just stopped over here for a night before we make the overnight bus journey tonight to Curitiba.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was a rainy day in paradise, so Franco took us on a short tour of the penninsula and its many many bays. We then went to the supermarket to purchase very very cheap Cachaca (Brazillian cane rum stuff) and limes. With nothing else to do due to the weather, Franco gave us a lesson in Caipirinha making, and thereby gave us something to do the whole day. After excessive Cachaca intake, we took a walk into town and sat on the pier, from where we spotted some turtles and two amoungst us (fausto and nadia) immediately decided that the person who most resembles a turtle is Ryan Smit. Congratulations Ryan.

Wednesday:

More kak weather today. Boo hoo hoo. Again we solved our troubles with more Caipirinha`s. That evening we went to Patio Havana, a cuban bar/restaurant in town where we ate great Pizzas and listened to a Samba/Jazz/BossaNova three piece band. The drummer bore a sharp resemblance to a Beaver. We sat listening to the BossaNova Beaver for quite some time, before heading home.

Thursday:

Good weather today! Got up earlyish and went to a beach called Jao Fernandinho - a tiny bay with tranquil clear water. Fonz and Esteban rented a two man kayak for an hour and proceeded to conquer the waters of Buzios.

After setting our sights on a nearby (nature conservationish) island, we (very bravely) attempted to land our yellow boat on the urchin infested rocks of ye ol isle. This did not go well. After much shouting and falling about and cutting our feet on the barnacles, we conquered said Ilse and proclaimed it as new territory for the Republic of South Africa (we did this by urinating on it). Henceforth, the Ilse has been known by all as the Ilha do Ventersdorp.

That evening we went to a Creperie (Crapery) called Chez Michou and ate crepes (craps). The crepe jokes (crap jokes) were made as easily as the crepes (craps) were by the crepemakers (crappers). These jokes still continue today. After eating craps all night and washing our craps down with Skols, we went home. We soon became regulars at Chez where we ate craps on a daily basis.

Friday:

The good weather continued today so we hit the local beach (there are 23 beaches in Buzios and Ferradura, one of the bigger beaches, was in front of our house). We took a large inflatable boat along and since the bay of Ferradura is so bay-like that the two ends almost touch (like the Knysna heads) the water is completely calm and bright blue - like a huuuuuuge swimming pool. We stayed on the beach the whole day, tanning, floating aimlessly on the boat and chilling out (Who says travelling is all just fun hey?). That night we were feeling up for a large night so we tried a Mexican club called Zapata, but the big douchebag bouncer was an idiot with no business sense and was turning everyone away because he was in a bad mood and thus the club was empty. (It seems that bouncers are universally stupid). So we landed up at good ol´Chez Michou - they dont just make craps there, its also a happenin bar where you can dance around with your crap in your hand. Nadia is getting very tired of our Crepe jokes so that will be the last one :)

Saturday:

Great weather again so we went to another of the many beaches - Joao Fernandes - another great bay-like beach with amazing gold-green water. We sat on a deck above the beach and did some intense people watching. We then hired some snorkelling gear and took the underwater camera case with us (thanks Dan). Fantastic.


That evening we bought our bus tickets back to Rio and landed up, once again, eating freshly made craps at Chez Michou.

Sunday:

Packed our bags and got on the bus to Rio. After much waiting around near the metro station trying to get hold of Gustavo on a payphone (Gustavo is a born and bred Carioca who kindly agreed to put us up for the night). The Gusmeister took us to an all-you-can-eat place in Copa where they had every kind of food you can imagine. After gourging ourselves on Sushi, we tried some rather unusual foods like frog´s legs, Rabbit (Bunny!) and chicken hearts (naat so nice). We walked around Rio for a bit and came home. Gustavo is a photographer (and a mechanical engineer on the side) and so he insisted on taking some photos of us. He also let us in on his incredible spading technique of having a professional looking photography studio in his living room. Genius. Fausto priced some photography equipment this morning.

Monday (today):

Gustavo`s brother (who is a tourguide who had lived in Rio all his life) picked us up and took us up Corcovado to see this giant statue of Bob, a guy who looks a lot like Jesus. We then took a drive through Lapa and visited an incredible tiled staircase which the artist (who we found working on the staircase) has been continually crafting for the last 18 years. He began trying to sell his paintings in Lapa 20 years ago but was unsuccesful because it was such a scummy area. So he began to clean it up and make it look better by tiling all 215 stairs and the surrounding walls. He is still working on this task and continually changes and updates the tiles. He asks tourists to send him tiles from their home countries and now 115 countries are represented somehow on his staircase (which is actually still public property so he doesnt reap the benefits of his work). We were all in awe of his giant staircase and his impressively masculine moustache. Fausto and Esteban are slowly putting together a music video of us hiphopping around the world... Snoopy Dog (who copied us and also flimed his music video here) had better watch out befo ma boys put a cap in his ayes.

Thats all for now you thirsty little blog readers. We´re catching an overnight bus at 9pm tonight and heading for Curitiba in the South, en route to Foz do Iguazu and then Argentina.

Yakshemash!

Los Gringos

Photo links: http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/RioForTheSecondTime

http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/Buzios